Day Twenty-Eight – Forests and Firebirds

"The stimulus for any individual listening to music, fully engaged, with their imagination working, is really what this is all about." —James Levine on Fantasia 2000

There is no other singular form of the arts that can bring such a strong emotional response as music. But combine music with another such as animation, dance or film and Kapow! I finished watching Fantasia 2000 that I started yesterday ending with Igor Stravinsky's Firebird Suite animated to The Birth, Death and Renewal of the Forest. This is such a powerful piece of music by itself anyway. The visualization of the forest nymph spirit fatally weakened by the thunderous explosion of a firebird volcano was inspired by the eruption of Mount. St. Helens in 1980. And then as the legendary phoenix, nature finds her way to be reborn.

All of the segments are fantastic but these two are the ones that really stood out for me.

Day Twenty-Seven - Rhythm and Hues

Top left drawing of Gershwin by Al Hirschfeld.
Top right cell from Fantasia 2000 by Eric Goldberg.
All others are from film also. 

The last few days have been a combo mini-getaway and film fest so I'm separating into a few days' posts. First I started watching Fantasia 2000 which this is only the second time I've seen this film. There is so much to be inspired from! George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue is a pure delight. The art was inspired by the style of Al Hirschfeld who was also a consultant with Eric Goldberg to create. This is one of my favorite pieces of music and setting its rhythms and hues to animation captured all the spirit perfectly.

"Fantasia was an Harmonic Convergence of Idea, Music and Artist."

This interesting quote came from the DVD extras, concerning The Steadfast Soldier but I think it applies to the entire film.